Storage Systems

Enterprise RAID and NAS Storage Systems

Pacific ESI provides a unique blend of RAID and NAS storage systems.
We specialize in the mid-sized
Infortrend range with capacities ranging from several TB to over 50TB.
At the lower end of the scale, we use the excellent ARECA and LSI Logic
controllers to provide internal RAID systems within server enclosures
for the 1TB-10TB range.
At the high end of the scale, we use the large Fujitsu ETERNUS Raid systems
which provide storage from 10 to 100 Terabytes and more

High Availability Mid-Sized RAID

The Infotrend B12F RAID
subsystem comes with sophisticated high availability features including
redundant RAID controllers, cross-controller 'sync-cache' channels, a
passive backplane, and redundant cooling and power supply modules.
The highest performance density is achieved within a compact design which
uses only IU of rack space and exploits the latest generation of Small Form
Factor (SFF) 2.5 inch disk drives.
The system provides dual redundant 4GB fibre-chanel (FCAL) back to the host
system, with the redundancy extending to both power supplies and fans.
Finally, redundant network ports provide both a web-based and an SNMP
remote monitoring interface to the entire system.
(Download DataSheet)

Thanks to the low vibration and reduced airflow requirements of 2.5-inch
drives, the B12F runs with higher reliability.
The B12F does not compromise on its advanced RAID functionality because of its
compact size.
The B12F supports RAID levels 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, multi-level logical volumes, and
all with a renowned, proven, firmware functionality.

The B12F grants users the flexibility to intermix SAS/SATA disk drives and SATA
Solid State Disks (SSDs) in master RAID and slave 1U expansion enclosures for a
tiered storage environment.

The higher-performance and reliable SAS drives and SSDs would be used for the
critical and I/O-intensive access, while less expensive (per GB) SATA disk
drives are ideal for less-critical data, archive, or disk-to-disk (D2D) backup.

The key to the B12F is the use of 2.5 inch disk drives.
These drives are designed for environments requiring higher reliability and
higher I/O density.
The benefits of 2.5" drives are significant.
SFF 2.5-inch drives are simply smaller than their 3.5 inch counterparts.
That means more drives can be integrated in the disk array enclosures
Using 2.5" drives allows more spindles in less than half of rackmount space
than using the 3.5" counterparts.
And more spindles mean higher IOPS performance.

SFF 2.5-inch drives consume 45% less power than their 3.5-inch counterparts.
They run cooler with reduced airflow requirements, which also decrease the
chance of encountering thermal issues and the cost on providing airflow
ventilation.
In addition to the reduction in cost, and smaller environmental footprint,
less power means cooler enclosures, and therefore a higher overall reliability.

Additionally, they
are 70% smaller:
With an estimated $1000+ cost per square foot in an average data center, they
permit the installation of 2.5 times the numbers of drives in the same data
center footprint.
These SFF 2.5-inch drives also
have a higher MTBF:
High-end 15,000RPM 2.5-inch SAS drives feature a 1.6 million hour MTBF, which
is 15 percent higher than the 1.4 million hour by 3.5-inch disk drives.

Spinning multiple drives in a RAID enclosure can introduce interference from
the seek acceleration by one drive seeking data to another that is writing.
The transmitted vibration can cause retries and hence the overall array
performance can be affected.
In a high-transaction rate and random-access environment with intensive seek
operations, the potential performance loss can be eased by 2.5-inch drives
because they do not generate sufficient vibration during seeks to degrade the
overall performance.

NAS Storage

Other models are available covering a broad spectrum of capacities.
Several types of network interfaces are supported.

Infortrend B12F

The above chassis contains the controllers and the first 12 2.5-inch drives.
Additional (daisy-chain) chassis modules provide an expansion capability
well beyond those first 12.